4 ms·

Isn't ASML a dutch company? How is Europe not a leader? Unless you mean in wafer production/fabs or being on the forefront of shrinking process-nodes. Europe i

Isn't ASML a dutch company? How is Europe not a leader? Unless you mean in wafer production/fabs or being on the forefront of shrinking process-nodes. Europe is behind in fabs and has historically underfunded the industry - understandable, as it had worked fine for a long time, with globalization, long supply chains and JIT inventories. Then came nativism, "Tariff Man" and a global pandemic, and Europe had to rethink its long-term strategy.

systemvoltage 5y ago
There is more that goes inside a Fab than a litho tool. Granted it’s a major one, but a fabs has 400 process steps. See KLA Tencor, Applied Materials, TEL, Advantest, ASM, Hirata, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, etc probably dozens more.
- baybal2 5y ago
  Yes, and "dozens more" needs to be changed to hundreds more, with most not being known even to industry insiders. Lots of them are single vendor globally, and are Taiwanese. For example, FOUP cleaning machines are made only by Gudeng (as well as ultra low particle FOUPs themselves,) and don't think that "cleaning machine" is any much less sophisticated than other equipment. It's the size of a truck, made of space age materials to survive fluorines, and costs many megabucks.
throwawaysea 5y ago
ASML is a supplier for one part of the overall process yes, but their core innovation is also somewhat limited. Their EUV technology is actually based on a license from the US DOE (from 1999: https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/ https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/), as part of a consortium of companies that were allowed to benefit from early US R&D into EUV. This is also why the US is able to require ASML to not export EUV machines to China. In my opinion from limited knowledge, being a leader means also being able to change the industry in significant ways. You could argue ASML has contributed to that but I think their dependence on US research indicates they aren’t independently set up to be a leader in this space.
- xxpor 5y ago
  >U.S. Undersecretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said, “if the EUV technology proves viable, ASML has agreed to build a factory in the U.S., similar to its Netherlands facility, as well as to establish an American research and development center. The factory will supply 100 percent of all ASML's sales in the United States.” Did this actually happen? Does Intel buy ASML machines?
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    I am not actually sure, but ASML does have a US R&D and manufacturing presence. Their largest site is in CT (https://www.asml.com/en/company/about-asml/locations/wilton-ct https://www.asml.com/en/company/about-asml/locations/wilton-...). As for Intel, they bought a 15% stake in ASML in 2012 (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-asml-idUSBRE86819B20120709 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-asml-idUSBRE86819B2...) and ASML is have suspected to have sold machines to Intel subsequently (https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/asml-sells-15-euv-lithography-scanners-possibly-to-intel/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilo...). However, Intel may have not needed as many machines because they were able to avoid depending on EUV for some nodes (https://www.reuters.com/article/asml-intel-idUSL8N1AY2H4 https://www.reuters.com/article/asml-intel-idUSL8N1AY2H4).
- Slartie 5y ago
  How can a patent from 1999 still provide any leverage? Isn't the lifetime of US patents (or patents in general in most countries) limited to 20 years, so this patent should have expired in 2019?
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    I'm no expert, but I'd say that patent is only one of many patented inventions needed to turn it into a working product. That is, say the patent expired, anyone could make an EUV laser, but that in itself does not produce nanometer scale transistors.
  - mpol 5y ago
mschuster91 5y ago
> Isn't ASML a dutch company? How is Europe not a leader? The same reasons why the US doesn't have much presence any more: 1) Environment protection and emission laws: just look at the Silicon Valley, half of it is a Superfund site from decades of silicon manufacturing. 2) Lack of skilled and experienced (!) engineers 3) For Europe: lack of access to the many billions of dollars that a fab build requires 4) Cost: No matter what you do, simply alone due to wages, real estate and raw material cost, US and European-made components will always be more expensive than Asia-made. The military can afford it to specify "homemade" as requirement, but everyone else will be going with whoever is the cheapest option. Yes we have a bit of a supply stretch at the moment ("thanks" to shitcoin miners and fuck-ups by automotive), but this will even out sooner or later and the prices return to their old normal level, which means a domestic production won't be cost-effective any more, which in turn means it's hard to get funding for such a project from banks. The only way out is massive government investments and subsidies.
- ovi256 5y ago
  Your phrasing "fuck-ups by automotive" brought to mind something: if automotive didn't fuck-up, would that have reduced the shortages ? In the automotive sector, yes, of course, but not the general shortages, surely ? Would we'd just have shortages elsewhere, notably in home electronics, which is the industry that picked up all the spare production capacity that automotive freed. Is one better than the other ?
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    The problem is the ripple effect that automotive has across societies. It's one thing if shitcoin miners or gamers have to wait for GPUs, but when the automotive industry with its many millions of employees and in sequence its supply chain with even more millions of employees is grinding to a halt, the impact is immense. If anything, corona has shown us how extremely unhealthy the dependency of modern society on the automotive industry is. We need to wean ourselves off of that, and the sooner we begin the better - climate change is the next catastrophe waiting in the starting block.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
I'm not an expert so this is entirely armchair reasoning, but I can think of a few factors. We don't have a culture of crazy investors, nor one of hypergrowth - I mean how many US startups went from nothing to a $1B valuation or takeover in a year, maybe two after they first started making waves? Wages are not as crazy. Neither is cost of living, but it does mean the most talented people will pursue a career where the pay matches. Anyway when you consider things like income taxes going to a government that doesn't spend more on the military than any other country, socialist policies, and sane health care, it does even out a lot. It's not as much of a union as they want to make believe. Anything that grows to a certain size will deal with a lot of international headaches. Freedom of movement and trade has made things a lot easier (something the UK wasn't aware of apparently, probably still stuck in English exceptionalism, and they're getting fucked over left and right because of it at the moment). I mean one project going on right now is "they" are trying to build a EU focused AWS / GCE competitor, but instead of empowering or investing in a single company, or letting the market work for a company to rise in the ranks, they're making it some big international semi-government affair, where each country is fighting hard to protect and promote their interests. It's turned into not a technical or business challenge, but a political one. I mean I'm a complete fuckwit myself but give me a few billion in spending money and absolute power and I'll build you a secure EU cloud provider.
- sangnoir 5y ago
  Random counterpoints: how many US hardware startups managed to have hypergrowth. How many US hardware startups are involved in chip fabrication, period? Taiwan doesn't have either crazy investors or hypergrowth. I suspect the chip hardware business requires many years of steady-but-compounding growth. As for the AWS/GCE competitor: I suspect the policy goal is not to have one platform/product in X years that will soon be outdated. Rather, it's to nurture and grow a competitive domestic ecosystem that is self-sufficient. That way, you may have dozens of AWSes in thr future that keep you on the leading edge (not just inplementors)
jmrm 5y ago
I want to add other reason: It's astronomically expensive and really slow to grow. TSMC started in 1987, and AFAIK, the government of Taiwan invest in the company to help their grow. EU started some years ago, investing in R&D in this sector, some years ago. We need to wait at least a decade to see a real impact starting to grow with this initiatives.
patentatt 5y ago
ASML and ARM. Even if ARM is now owned by SoftBank, it’s still HQ’d in Europe, right? Combine the best lithography machines and the leading architecture and Europe probably should be dominant. Interesting that they choose instead to export so much of the value chain around the world.

systemvoltage 5y ago

There is more that goes inside a Fab than a litho tool. Granted it’s a major one, but a fabs has 400 process steps. See KLA Tencor, Applied Materials, TEL, Advantest, ASM, Hirata, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, etc probably dozens more.

baybal2 5y ago
Yes, and "dozens more" needs to be changed to hundreds more, with most not being known even to industry insiders. Lots of them are single vendor globally, and are Taiwanese. For example, FOUP cleaning machines are made only by Gudeng (as well as ultra low particle FOUPs themselves,) and don't think that "cleaning machine" is any much less sophisticated than other equipment. It's the size of a truck, made of space age materials to survive fluorines, and costs many megabucks.

throwawaysea 5y ago

ASML is a supplier for one part of the overall process yes, but their core innovation is also somewhat limited. Their EUV technology is actually based on a license from the US DOE (from 1999: https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/ https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/), as part of a consortium of companies that were allowed to benefit from early US R&D into EUV. This is also why the US is able to require ASML to not export EUV machines to China. In my opinion from limited knowledge, being a leader means also being able to change the industry in significant ways. You could argue ASML has contributed to that but I think their dependence on US research indicates they aren’t independently set up to be a leader in this space.

xxpor 5y ago
>U.S. Undersecretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said, “if the EUV technology proves viable, ASML has agreed to build a factory in the U.S., similar to its Netherlands facility, as well as to establish an American research and development center. The factory will supply 100 percent of all ASML's sales in the United States.” Did this actually happen? Does Intel buy ASML machines?
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  I am not actually sure, but ASML does have a US R&D and manufacturing presence. Their largest site is in CT (https://www.asml.com/en/company/about-asml/locations/wilton-ct https://www.asml.com/en/company/about-asml/locations/wilton-...). As for Intel, they bought a 15% stake in ASML in 2012 (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-asml-idUSBRE86819B20120709 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-asml-idUSBRE86819B2...) and ASML is have suspected to have sold machines to Intel subsequently (https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/asml-sells-15-euv-lithography-scanners-possibly-to-intel/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilo...). However, Intel may have not needed as many machines because they were able to avoid depending on EUV for some nodes (https://www.reuters.com/article/asml-intel-idUSL8N1AY2H4 https://www.reuters.com/article/asml-intel-idUSL8N1AY2H4).
Slartie 5y ago
How can a patent from 1999 still provide any leverage? Isn't the lifetime of US patents (or patents in general in most countries) limited to 20 years, so this patent should have expired in 2019?
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  I'm no expert, but I'd say that patent is only one of many patented inventions needed to turn it into a working product. That is, say the patent expired, anyone could make an EUV laser, but that in itself does not produce nanometer scale transistors.
- mpol 5y ago

mschuster91 5y ago

> Isn't ASML a dutch company? How is Europe not a leader? The same reasons why the US doesn't have much presence any more: 1) Environment protection and emission laws: just look at the Silicon Valley, half of it is a Superfund site from decades of silicon manufacturing. 2) Lack of skilled and experienced (!) engineers 3) For Europe: lack of access to the many billions of dollars that a fab build requires 4) Cost: No matter what you do, simply alone due to wages, real estate and raw material cost, US and European-made components will always be more expensive than Asia-made. The military can afford it to specify "homemade" as requirement, but everyone else will be going with whoever is the cheapest option. Yes we have a bit of a supply stretch at the moment ("thanks" to shitcoin miners and fuck-ups by automotive), but this will even out sooner or later and the prices return to their old normal level, which means a domestic production won't be cost-effective any more, which in turn means it's hard to get funding for such a project from banks. The only way out is massive government investments and subsidies.

ovi256 5y ago
Your phrasing "fuck-ups by automotive" brought to mind something: if automotive didn't fuck-up, would that have reduced the shortages ? In the automotive sector, yes, of course, but not the general shortages, surely ? Would we'd just have shortages elsewhere, notably in home electronics, which is the industry that picked up all the spare production capacity that automotive freed. Is one better than the other ?
- mschuster91 5y ago
  The problem is the ripple effect that automotive has across societies. It's one thing if shitcoin miners or gamers have to wait for GPUs, but when the automotive industry with its many millions of employees and in sequence its supply chain with even more millions of employees is grinding to a halt, the impact is immense. If anything, corona has shown us how extremely unhealthy the dependency of modern society on the automotive industry is. We need to wean ourselves off of that, and the sooner we begin the better - climate change is the next catastrophe waiting in the starting block.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

I'm not an expert so this is entirely armchair reasoning, but I can think of a few factors. We don't have a culture of crazy investors, nor one of hypergrowth - I mean how many US startups went from nothing to a $1B valuation or takeover in a year, maybe two after they first started making waves? Wages are not as crazy. Neither is cost of living, but it does mean the most talented people will pursue a career where the pay matches. Anyway when you consider things like income taxes going to a government that doesn't spend more on the military than any other country, socialist policies, and sane health care, it does even out a lot. It's not as much of a union as they want to make believe. Anything that grows to a certain size will deal with a lot of international headaches. Freedom of movement and trade has made things a lot easier (something the UK wasn't aware of apparently, probably still stuck in English exceptionalism, and they're getting fucked over left and right because of it at the moment). I mean one project going on right now is "they" are trying to build a EU focused AWS / GCE competitor, but instead of empowering or investing in a single company, or letting the market work for a company to rise in the ranks, they're making it some big international semi-government affair, where each country is fighting hard to protect and promote their interests. It's turned into not a technical or business challenge, but a political one. I mean I'm a complete fuckwit myself but give me a few billion in spending money and absolute power and I'll build you a secure EU cloud provider.

sangnoir 5y ago
Random counterpoints: how many US hardware startups managed to have hypergrowth. How many US hardware startups are involved in chip fabrication, period? Taiwan doesn't have either crazy investors or hypergrowth. I suspect the chip hardware business requires many years of steady-but-compounding growth. As for the AWS/GCE competitor: I suspect the policy goal is not to have one platform/product in X years that will soon be outdated. Rather, it's to nurture and grow a competitive domestic ecosystem that is self-sufficient. That way, you may have dozens of AWSes in thr future that keep you on the leading edge (not just inplementors)

jmrm 5y ago

I want to add other reason: It's astronomically expensive and really slow to grow. TSMC started in 1987, and AFAIK, the government of Taiwan invest in the company to help their grow. EU started some years ago, investing in R&D in this sector, some years ago. We need to wait at least a decade to see a real impact starting to grow with this initiatives.

patentatt 5y ago

ASML and ARM. Even if ARM is now owned by SoftBank, it’s still HQ’d in Europe, right? Combine the best lithography machines and the leading architecture and Europe probably should be dominant. Interesting that they choose instead to export so much of the value chain around the world.